Equal opportunity Or Equal Results, Which America Do You Want?

Like many others I watched Paul Ryan, (who I hope will be our next Vice President) give a speech in Virginia. He talked about the many things that need to be fixed in this country, but there were two things he said that stuck out for me. He said that we need to get back to an equal opportunity country not an equal results country. Finally, someone who knows what America is all about. If you remember, the Declaration of Independence grants us the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness. The key word is Pursuit, which means equal opportunity not equal results.

Alas, we have a President who does not believe that, Obama and most on the left believe that there should not only be equal opportunity, but equal results for all. Which in itself sounds great, I myself wish everyone could succeed. However, in life there are winners and there are losers, that is just reality. Never the less, Obama not only wants equal results for all, the way he wants it accomplished is a crime, or it should be. He feels that those who already have made a success of themselves, should give to those who have not made it (spread the wealth) not only that, he wants Government to control it, to make sure it is fair. It seems to me, with Obama’s way, when he is fair to one group, he is being unfair to another. Punishing successful people by taking what they earned and giving it to unsuccessful people (Robin Hood Syndrome) is or should be a crime. But this is something the left will never understand.

Mr. Ryan also said, America is more than just a place…it’s an idea. It’s the only country founded on an idea. Our rights come from nature and God, not government. This idea is founded on the principles of liberty, freedom, free enterprise, self-determination and government by consent of the governed. In other words, the people tell the government what to do, not the government telling us what to do. An America that guarantees equal opportunity, not equal results. And an America that believes our rights come from God not the government is the kind of America we need to get back too.

America has a big decision to make, it should be obvious to all, but unfortunately it is not. While 68% of the country feel we are headed in the wrong direction, the polls have Obama and Romney in a tie. After Mr. Ryan said this:
The commitment Mitt Romney and I make to you is this:
We won’t duck the tough issues…we will lead!
We won’t blame others…we will take responsibility!
We won’t replace our founding principles…we will reapply them!
We will honor you, our fellow citizens, by giving you the right and opportunity to make the choice:
• What kind of country do we want to have?
• What kind of people do we want to be?
We can turn this thing around. Real solutions can be delivered. But, it will take leadership. And the courage to tell you the truth.
With words like this the polls should show Romney/Ryan as the clear choice, after all, we have not had a leader, or one who tells the truth for 3 ½ years now. The President we have in the White House now has done nothing but criticize, condemn and complain the whole time he has been in office. I think America is ready for real change this time. Let us get America back.

7 comments

I think the truth is messy and lies somewhere in between these two statements. There are a lot of hard-working and smart individuals who never truly find monetary success, but do a great job at building a happy stable family. There are stupid and maybe even lazy people who through lucky circumstances end up super-wealthy. some very intelligent and motivated people are born into poverty and through their incessant ingenuity die rich, and leave rich offspring. What we can conclude: a million different things happen in society; some people who become rich worked hard for it and some did not. Some people who become poor did so through lack of work ethic, while some are good people who were just unlucky. I do NOT believe it is the responsibility of the government to “level the playing field” and there will always be winners and losers in society. But remember, a lot of those losers are good people, who lie on both sides of the ideological spectrum (there are plenty of poor republicans on TANF/SNAP, just like poor democrats). and there are plenty of Republicans collecting social entitlement benefits like medicare and medicaid, entitlements that republicans generally support (or at least senior citizen republicans frequently do). But I think that there is one fundamental truth/goal that both democrats and republicans can agree on: as few people should be given government entitlements and handouts as possible. we need to move towards that, and we need to do it intelligently. all of a sudden cutting all these programs into oblivion will leave a thousand other problems (and wouldn’t even be a popular solution amongst conservatives), so we need to work together and use hard data and studies to find ways to attack these problems at the root and reduce entitlement spending as much as possible, as quickly as possible. No one benefits from successive generations of individuals taking endless welfare checks (whether they are a poor liberal black family in the inner city, or a poor white family in rural kentucky), but just abruptly cutting this money and leaving those individuals to the streets is not a viable solution. same goes for medicare and medicaid and social security. these are problems that we can ALL agree need to be tackled, but they need to be tackled carefully and in a bipartisan way. also, they are going to be very technical and intricate issues, and politicians need to drop the lofty rhetoric and start diving into data and details. the solutions may be complex and we need to make sure we work as quickly as possible, and as efficiently as possible, to reduce these entitlements and reign in spending, and we need to not be afraid of at least attempting to explain technical details to the public and let them in on the process. and this is coming from someone on the *slightly* more liberal side of things

Well stated. I don’t think anyone wants to just cut programs and throw people in the street. The smart way is to grow the economy and get people working again and get people off these programs that way. People working is the answer to many of our countries problems. This coming from a guy who leans conservative.

Did it ever occur to you that those who are wealthy may have had certain advantages in life that others did not have? Or do you truly believe that every wealth person is wealthy because they are just smarter and made a fortune for themselves? Think of a disabled person who was born blind. Did they really have the same opportunities and playing field that you had? Sometimes people can truly amaze me. Oh, and since election day has come and gone, Obama by over 130 electoral votes is the winner. I guess our president is doing something right.

Funny you should write at this time, I am watching The Men That Built America, men like Andrew Carnegie,Henry Ford,John D. Rockefella, cornelius vanderbilt, Henry Frick all were born poor, Carnegie born dirt poor. Still they became the richest men of their time. Yea there are people that inherit their money. I never said just being smart makes you rich, but a combination of the way they think, their attitudes, their actions, their outlook on life and their belief system.Two people born into poverty, one becomes successful the other lives in poverty his whole life, why? It ain’t because of government that’s for sure.

I forgot to answer your Obama comment, Obama won the same way Hitler won. He divided the country into groups, instilled fear in them, which had nothing to do with reality and promised them the world.Hahahaha

Something to consider….. Today’s Survey: A USA Today analysis of federal records shows that more Americans are now depending on government assistance than at any other time in the nation’s history. In 2010, close to 20% of the nation’s total personal income came from the feds. Should Obama be reelected in 2012? http://tinyurl.com/72jjbdb